International Film Resources for Educators
International film brings to life different cultures and other parts of the world for your students. Through the rich tools of the cinematic art, films create a powerful medium for globalizing your curriculum. They also provide an international experience for students, staff, and faculty who have not traveled abroad.
This page lists international film collections at UNC at Chapel Hill and Duke University available to community colleges at no cost. It also provides annotations and links for film and review databases, filmographies, and selected film publications from a variety of sources. To help you get started, our colleagues at the National Resource Centers at Duke and UNC have suggested films they think will work well in your classrooms. The film collection list provides links to annotated titles to help you select movies. Finally, there are short guides to using film in the classroom, including a discussion on teaching Hispanic/Latino culture and history through film by Sharon Mújica from the Institute for the Study of the Americas at UNC at Chapel Hill.
Film Collections at UNC, Duke, and other Universities Available to Community Colleges
The Consortium in Latin American Studies, UNC at Chapel Hill and Duke University |
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| Collection type: films and videos | Collection type: films and documentaries | ||
| Length of borrowing period: one week for items mailed out (not including mailing time), three days for items picked up at ISA | Length of borrowing period: one week (not including mailing time) | ||
Cost: none Contact person: la_films@unc.edu, 919/843-8888 or 919/966-1484 |
Contact person: Gali Beeri, International Education Program Coordinator, gali@unc.edu, 919/962-6765 |
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Click here to see annotated titles. |
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| Asian Pacific Studies Institute, Duke University | Center For Slavic, Eurasian and Eastern European Studies, UNC at Chapel Hill | ||
| Collection type: documentary |
Collection type: films and documentaries | ||
| Length of borrowing period: two weeks (not including mailing time) | Length of borrowing period: variable | ||
| Cost: none |
Cost: none | ||
| Contact person: Karla Loveall, Outreach Coordinator, karla.loveall@duke.edu, 919/668-2280 | Contact person: Jacqueline M. Olich, Associate Director, jmolich@email.unc.edu, 919/962-0901 or Karla Nagy, Department Manager, knagy@unc.edu, 919/962-0901 |
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Annoted list not currently available online. Please contact Karla Loveall at APSI for further information. |
Annoted list not currently available online. Please contact CSEEES directly for further information. |
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| World View, UNC at Chapel Hill | |||
| Collection type: films and documentaries | |||
| Length of borrowing period: three weeks | |||
| Cost: none | |||
| Contact person: Neil Bolick, Associate Director, nebolick@unc.edu, 919/843-5332 | |||
Click here to see annotated titles. |
Film Recommendations |
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Karla Loveall, Asian Pacific Studies Institute at Duke University |
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| In "Wings of Defeat" (2007) filmmakers Risa Morimoto and Linda Hoaglund explore the travesty of war through interviews with suriviving Kamikaze pilots, rare WWII battle footage, and Japanese propaganda. This documentary offers a rare glimpse of World War II and Japanese history and provides viewers the chance to consider the complexities of historical narratives. |
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| The documentary "Please Vote for Me" (Chen, 2007) follows one class of 8-year-olds in a Chinese elementary school as they experiment with voting for a class monitor. Viewers have the opportunity to explore the complexity of this process as these third graders furiously compete, with the help of parents and friends, for the office. The story that unfolds reveals much about issues in contemporary China and even more about the messy process we call democracy. A great film for discussing civic process while presenting a small slice of life in today's China. | ||
| Martine Antle, Center for European Studies UNC at Chapel Hill | ||
"On Boys, Girls and the Veil" (Nasrallah, 1995) offers excellent interviews with young men and women about the "hijab" and its cultural, social and religious implications. An excellent springboard to speak about the "hijab." |
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"Good Bye Lenin" (Becker, 2003) is the perfect film to introduce a key moment in European history, the Fall of the Berlin Wall. It is a parodic and self reflexive film, which points to the artificiality of reconstructing (or attempting to reconstruct) history in film. |
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"Harem Suare" by Ozpetek (1999) recreates the last days of the Ottoman Empire in the Yidiz Palace in Istanbul. Love, eroticism and power are expected in the Harem, however the questions presented weave an intricate dialogue with recent feminist writings on the Harem (Mernissi's writing in particular). |
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| Will you be seduced by "Chouchou" (Allouach, 2003)? As a North African immigrant "queer" character, Chouchou, played by one of the top French stand-up comedians Gad Elmaheh, seduces all of Paris, including the priest and a sexy psychoanalyst. As in all comedies, the film ends up in marriage, and Chouchou ends up marrying the man of his life. Excellent film to present current social issues. | ||
| Jacqueline Olich, Center For Slavic, Eurasian and Eastern European Studies UNC at Chapel Hill | ||
| "Global Voices Comprehensive: the Music and Culture of Kyrgyzstan" from the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center (Mailybekova and Huseynova, 2008) and a film entitled "Beshkempir: The Adopted Son" (Abdykalykov, 1998) are both recent additions to the Center For Slavic, Eurasian and Eastern European Studies lending library. Both DVDs serve as an excellent complement to the archived program "The Silk Road: Music Across the Kyrgyz Mountains," a UNC Area Studies GlobalMusic Show. | ||
| Enver Casimir, The Consortium in Latin American Studies UNC Chapel Hill and Duke | ||
| "La vida no es facil" (Martinez and Sabella, 2006) is a documentary that deals specifically with North Carolina and addresses some of the issues that have come to the fore as the Latino population in North Carolina has grown. Given that it deals with individuals of college age, it is particularly suited for a community college setting. | ||
Film and Review Databases and Filmographies |
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| Film Finder (search.lib.unc.edu/filmfinder) from the UNC at Chapel Hill Library's Media Resources Center is a searchable filmography of more than 12,000 film titles available on VHS, DVD, and 16mm in the MRC collection. The database allows users to search by title, genre, origin, and director. | |
| Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) This useful site contains production data, awards, user reviews, plot summaries, and information on the commercial availability of the title (with a direct link to Amazon.com for ordering). The database can be searched by film title, person (actor, director, writer, production crew, etc.), character, quotation, biography, and plot. You can enter "international film" as a keyword to access international titles. |
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| Sight and Sound Review Archive (www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/) This site is an archive of film reviews published in the British Film Institute's journal. The database allows for searches by film title, country, director, year, and all text. |
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| Film Index International (fii.chadwyck.co.uk/home) This database from the British Film Institute provides resources for the study of entertainment films from around the world and lists an index of films from more than 170 countries. The database allows for searching by six major international awards as well as by title, director, and plot summary. |
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| Filmography for Latin American Cinema (www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/LatinAmfilm.html) This webpage lists UC Berkeley's Media Resources Center film holdings from Mexico, Central America, Cuba, the Caribbean, Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, and Peru and includes a brief synopsis. This page also includes related websites and a selection of bibliographies. |
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| Movie Review Query Engine (www.mrqe.com) This is a movie review database carrying more than 440,000 reviews of over 44,000 titles. In addition to searching by title, the database has a number of preset lists of titles by award (Berlin, Venice, Montreal, Cannes, and various US), recent and upcoming US and UK film releases, and recent DVD releases. |
Film Festivals in North Carolina |
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| Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at UNC at Chapel Hill and Duke University Every November a Latin American Film Festival is sponsored by the Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at UNC at Chapel Hill and Duke University together with NC State University, NC Central University, UNC-Greensboro, and Guilford College. The Consortium also co-sponsors The Annual William Wilson Brown, Jr. Latin American Film & Video Festival in Charlotte. Films encompass the wide variety of nations and diverse cultures that make up Latin America. Pre-film lectures and visits by renowned film directors are also organized as part of this event. All of these events are free and open to the public. |
The Riverrun International Film Festival
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Additional Film Resources |
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Learning About Other Cultures: Movies and Cultural Awareness
To read more tips on enjoying international film as well as discussion topics and a list of "Top 100 International Films" see the publication: The Pop Culturosity® Movie Guide |
 Purposeful Use of Film See the presentation PowerPoint:
Humanities and Social An international consortium of scholars and teachers, H-Net creates and coordinates Internet networks to advance teaching and research in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Two listservs to note are: H-film and H-AfrLitCine Teaching and Study of African Literature and Cinema. Visit http://www.h-net.org/lists/ |
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Asian Educational Media Services-University of Illinois Urbana Champaign Although they do not have films to lend, they provide numerous and accurate film resources for every region of area studies. Click here to visit the site and click on the area you are interested in for a complete list of film resources for educators.
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Selected Film Publications Film Comment Film Quarterly Film Journal international |
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Last updated 5-10